Hiratsuka Tanabata Matsuri | How do you enjoy festival in Japan? | Festival in Japan

Festival, Japan, Tanabata

Hello, everyone.
It’s me who had enjoyed festivals but recently have forgotten how I enjoyed festival, PQTom.
There are a lot of festival around the world.
Basically, festivals are very fun….basically.
I went to Hiratsuka ( part of Kanagawa Japan ) to see Tanabata Matsuri.
Since I was born, I had enjoyed festival in my home city but I’d never been to other cities to see festivals.
It is first time for me so I was pretty excited.
When I got Hiratsuka, There is a problem I’ve never had before.

How I can enjoy this festival.

In this article, I’m gonna talk how I enjoyed Hiratsuka Tanabata Matsuri.

目次

What is Tanabata?

First of all,  I’ll tell you what Tanabata is.

Orihime and Hikoboshi

Do you know “Orihime and Hikoboshi” ?
This is pretty sad story. I don’t have time to tell you this time….sorry.
but I can tell a little.
There are two guys.
One is a boy whose name is Hikoboshi.
The other one is a girl whose name is Orihime.
They were very hard worker.
Hikoboshi worked as a cattleman.
Orihime worked as a weaver.
Because of her enthusiasm for work, she didn’t have time to think getting a boyfriend.
When god saw the situation, god thought she need a boyfriend.
The god found a guy for her husband. It’s Hikoboshi.
First contact of the two, they were felling love each other soon.
After they met, they were becoming lazy and lazy for work. (You know what I say)
The god was coming again.
The god thought it’s really bad so the god separated the couple.
Orihime and Hikoboshi no longer can see each other except 1 day.
It’s july 7. Tanabata day.

What we do on the day

This day, we basically write something we dream on Tanzaku which is a narrow strip of paper.
Anything are ok so some people write they wanna be rich, someone write to have a partner. LOL
As I wrote, there is the legend story, “Orihime and Hikoboshi”, I think many people write about a partner.

What I did in the Festival

Next, I will talk what I do in Hiratsuka Tanabata Matsuri.

Walking around to see decoration

First, I could see decorations.

Like this.
Sooo great.
I saw many thing so bright in the night.
On the other hand, I saw the other side of the decorations

Like these two.
So nice!
If you wanna see more pictures, you can see in gallery page.

Enjoying meals

Decorations were so nice.
Not only decorations but also a lot of “Yatai” which is like a temporary shop.
There is a food shop, toy shop, drink shop and so on.

I bought this. “Gyutangushi”.
This is a ox tongue made in Sendai, northeast of Japan.
So delicious and reasonable. It is 600¥. Yes….reasonable.

Staying restaurant

After walking around about 1 hour, I took a rest in restaurant called “Izakaya”. 
Izakaya is basically a place where we enjoy drinking like a bar, however, even children can enjoy this time.
I spent 3 hours there. It was very good time.

Conclution

I talked about Tanabata and what I did in Hiratsuka tanabata Matsuri.
Actually, it was great experience.
I’d never seen like this even though I am Japanese. haha.
When I have time, I really wanna go to see other festival not only in Japan but also around the world.
I am glad you know Japanese culture “Tanabata” though this article.
See you next time.

Bye bye.